# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 09 23_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6

Supper, is concerned — it is not our will and intent that by this the persons who err out of simplicity, and who do not blaspheme the truth of the divine Word, still less entire churches, are meant; but rather that thereby only the false and seductive teachings, and their obstinate teachers and blasphemers, are properly rejected; since we entertain not the slightest doubt that many pious and innocent people are also to be found in the churches that have not hitherto altogether agreed with us, who walk in the simplicity of their hearts, do not rightly understand the matter, and take no pleasure at all in the blasphemies against the Holy Supper, and who, we hope, once they are rightly instructed in the doctrine, will through the guidance of the Holy Spirit turn and come over to the infallible truth of the divine Word together with us and our churches and schools." In this sense it is likewise stated in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 13, "On Monastic Vows": "We do not speak of all; there may be some in monasteries who know the holy Gospel of Christ and place no holiness in their traditions (human ordinances)." With this Luther likewise agrees in his private writings. He shows not only how God, in the darkest times of universal papal dominion, preserved for himself a holy seed of his children, a holy church, but also how, even now, after the dawning of the evangelical light through the Reformation, upright souls are still held in the bonds of the papacy who are nevertheless members of the true Church. He says, to cite but one testimony, in his exposition of the first book of Moses (Genesis 28:17): "The pope and his following are not the church. But when it is objected to us: do they not have baptism, the Lord's Supper, etc.? — to that I answer thus: those who have the pure Word and baptism belong to us and to the true church; but those who along with this have the churchly pomp of human ordinances are not the church; even though they have baptism and the text of the Gospel, they have it in vain." Luther judges the same of honest people who stand in outward fellowship with other sects. He writes in his letter "Concerning Rebaptism" (Luther's Works, Halle, XVII, 2675): "We must indeed confess that the fanatics have Scripture and God's Word in other articles; and whoever hears and believes it from them will be saved, even though they themselves are unholy heretics and blasphemers of Christ." This principle — that not only those are Lutherans who call themselves such — genuine Lutheran theologians have therefore never denied. They have always taught that countless people bear this name who only disgrace it and show by their fleshly conduct that they are no members of the true Church, no members of the spiritual body of Jesus Christ, no true Christians; and that, on the other hand, there are countless people who indeed have never called themselves Lutheran, and who nevertheless have been true Christians

and therefore Lutherans in deed and in truth. Let one testimony suffice in place of the many that could be cited here. When in the year 1573 the Reformed in France (commonly called Huguenots) had suffered the most gruesome persecutions from the papists, and on the notorious Paris Blood Wedding and within the two months following it some 70,000 of them were murdered with unheard-of, utterly devilish cruelty, a Lutheran theologian — who was a co-author of the Formula of Concord and who had just been driven out of Leipzig through the intrigues of the Reformed (the man known for his glorious hymn "All Glory Be to God on High," N. Selnecker) — set down the following judgment for the world: "In the persecutions that have arisen in France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, many innocent people have indeed also been miserably strangled for religion's sake, and many martyrs have also been found among that company who are Sacramentarians*), for whom even a heart of stone must rightly feel pity. But, dear God! all these were put to death as Lutherans, not for the doctrine of the Holy Supper, but because they would not worship the papal abomination. Therefore God has also graciously stood by them in their distress and called them to himself joyfully and with comfort, and has covered over their weakness and the secondary error in which they were entangled and misled concerning the Holy Supper, and has borne with it in patience — just as the gracious God always turns to the best account the faults and shortcomings of his believers, when these are not defended willfully, out of intent or obstinacy." (See: Brev. resp. ad crimen Danaei.) Thus speaks this man, who rejected the false doctrine of the Reformed in the most decisive terms. Yet here he proves that he was guided in this not by a passion for condemnation nor by the spirit of a sectarian, but solely by love of the truth. Although the Lutherans, on account of their earnest rejection of all false doctrine, are accused above all of intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and a passion for condemnation, no one deserves this charge less than they. When they rightly bear their name, they never confine the true Church to this name.

*) The old Lutheran theologians call those "Sacramentarians" who deny the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper.

Just as little do we believe, however, that the church to which we wish to belong is confined to any one country or to any one age. Rather, by the name "Lutheran" we confess ourselves to belong to the true catholic (universal) and apostolic Church, whose doctrine Luther preached. As regards the first point, this is clearly attested in our public confessional writings: "This comforting article is set into the Creed: 'I believe in a catholic, universal Christian Church,' so that no one should think that the church, like some other external polity, is bound to this or that country, kingdom, or estate, as the pope of Rome would have it. But it remains certainly true that the mass and the people who truly believe in Christ here and there in the world, from the rising of the sun to its setting, are the true Church — who have one Gospel, one Christ, one and the same baptism and sacrament, and are governed by one Holy Spirit, even though they have differing ceremonies." (See: Apology, Art. 7.) Luther testifies to the same thing in these words: "Christendom is not found solely under the Roman church or the pope, but throughout all the world; as the prophets proclaimed, that Christ's Gospel should come into all the world (Psalm 2:19); so that under pope, Turks, Persians, Tartars, and everywhere, Christendom is scattered bodily, but gathered spiritually in one Gospel and faith, under one Head, who is Jesus Christ." (See: Appendix to the Great Confession of 1528.) We cannot refrain from citing yet one more saying of Luther, to give proof that a sectarian view of the church was altogether foreign to him. He speaks on Galatians 1:2: "Therefore the church is holy everywhere, even in places where fanatics and factious spirits rule, so long as they do not altogether deny and reject the Word and Sacrament. For those who deny these things entirely are no longer a church. But where Word and Sacrament remain essentially present, there a holy church also remains, and it matters nothing that the Antichrist also reigns there — who sits not in a devil's stable, nor in a pigsty, nor among an unbelieving mob, but in the noblest and holiest place, namely, 'in the temple of God' (2 Thessalonians 2:4). From this it is indeed certain and evident that God's temple must be and remain, even under the spiritual tyrants who hold sway and rage within it. For one finds indeed everywhere, even among these same tyrants, those who believe rightly, etc. Therefore a short and easy answer can be given to this question: that the church is everywhere in all the world, wherever the Gospel and the Sacraments are found. But Jews, Turks, fanatics, factious spirits, or heretics are not the church; for they deny and destroy these things."

What holds true of the limits of place also holds true of the limits of time. As long as there has been an orthodox church on earth, so long has there also been a Lutheran one; it is (however strange this may sound) as old as the world, for it has no other doctrine than that which the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles received from God and preached. It is true that the name "Lutheran" arose only 300 years ago, but not the thing that it designates. When we are therefore so often asked: Where, then, was the Lutheran Church before Luther? this is quite easy to answer: it was